tion required. The employment soon became comparatively profitable, and above all had infinite charms to those wild spirits who alone at that time ventured into the seas of the West Indies."- Vol. I. pp. 48-50.

2. 1.

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The Law of Patents for Inventions; including the Remedies and Legal Proceedings in Relation to Patent Rights. By WILLARD PHILLIPS. Boston. American Stationers' Company. 1837. 8vo. pp. 528.

The Inventor's Guide; comprising the Rules, Forms, and Proceedings for securing Patent Rights. By WILLARD PHILLIPS. Boston. S. Colman. 1837. 12mo. pp. 368.

MR. PHILLIPS has given us two works on the same subject; — one for the professional, and the other for the non-professional reader. The first and larger work presents a full and systematic view of all the principles which regulate the law of Patents, illustrated by the various cases on this subject which have been adjudicated in the English and American courts. It is at once a philosophical and lawyer-like production. Reasons are presented, as well as precedents. The subject is handled with vigor, freedom, and learning. The French jurisprudence, which on this subject bears a strong resemblance to that of England and the United States, qualem decet esse sororum, is freely resorted to. A work like the present, where learning and philosophy, which so seldom meet in law-books, are joined, has been much needed by the profession for some time. Mr. Fessenden's "Essay on the Law of Patents," which is the only other American treatise on this subject, was a useful publication in its day, being well calculated to facilitate the labors of the practiser at the bar; but the lapse of time since its appearance has rendered another work highly necessary, which shall include the important alterations in the law, the many decisions of the courts, and the expansion of the principles bearing on patent rights, which have taken place. Besides, Fessenden's Essay was little more than a compilation, stuffed with the ipsissima verba of the courts, and containing very scanty discussions or statements of principles, other than as these occurred in the opinions of the court, from which are made such extended extracts.

The English treatises on the law of Patents are numerous, amounting to some half dozen, or more. Several of these have considerable merit; but all are deficient in a philosophical and logical way of showing the subject. In them the legal decis ions are almost uniformly collected with fidelity, and arranged

with some degree of method; but the golden cord of connexion, which is wrought from the author's brain, and by which all the parts are bound to each other as by a natural attraction, seems to be wanting. With the best of these Mr. Phillips's work will bear a comparison. Indeed, if we did not feel disposed to moderate the expression of our opinion, lest we fall under the suspicion of being swayed by a national partiality, we should place his work before them all, both in practical utility and in appropriate treatment of the subject.

In the smaller work, which is called "The Inventor's Guide," the author has prepared an abstract or abridgment of the other, calculated chiefly for artists, inventors, mechanics, and, in short,

for all who are not enrolled under the standard of black-letter. Those portions of the larger treatise, which are technical, or which relate to remedies and legal proceedings on the infringement of patents, are properly omitted. This little book contains a neat and succinct view of the whole subject, so far as it is interesting to other than professional readers. We venture to anticipate from its circulation not a little practical good. The rights of inventors will be more generally understood; and will, therefore, be more promptly secured and more universally respected. This, indeed, is one of the many facilities, peculiar to our age, for bringing home to the common mind a knowledge of some of those principles of law, in which all have such a deep stake, and which, by a presumption of law sufficiently paradoxical, all are supposed to know. In the short interval since its publication we have already met more than one practical mechanic, who has most carefully thumbed "The Inventor's Guide"; and we do not doubt that it will be extensively used throughout the country.

3. A Plea for the Education of the People of Kentucky. An Address, delivered before the Mayor and Common Council of Lexington, on the 29th of July, 1837; the Anniversary of the Public School of that City. By ROBERT WICKLIFFE, Jr. Lexington, (Ky.); Hinnell & Zimmerman. 1837. Svo. pp. 17.

THIS production bears the marks of a young, but able writer. It is full of an undisciplined vigor, which is often at once the sign of youth and of a hopeful manhood. It has a copiousness

of language and illustration, which clearly shows that the author draws from a full fountain; and that his care, in future, must VOL. XLVI. No. 98.

38

He must learn that

be rather how much, than whence, to draw. most difficult of all lessons for writers, to prune and cut away words, phrases, perhaps whole passages, which his first judgment approves. The topics are well chosen for the occasion; and the cause of education is advocated with a zeal which, with less knowledge than is here displayed, would of itself be productive of great good. "Kentucky," Mr. Wickliffe says, "proud as is her fame for chivalry and for arms, can never pluck the laurel of unmingled honor and renown, so long as there is one single freeman on her soil that cannot read the constitution of his country, and write his protest against oppression and misrule."

4. A New Translation of the Hebrew Prophets, arranged in Chronological Order. By GEORGE R. NOYES. In Three Volumes. Boston. Vol. I. Charles Bowen. 1833. Vols. II. and III. James Munroe & Company. 1837. 12mo. pp. xii., 288; vi. 293; 295.

WE avail ourselves of the earliest opportunity, to congratulate our readers on the completion of this work, constituting, together with the version of Job and of the Psalms by the same author, the most perfect and valuable series of biblical translations extant in our language. Mr. Noyes has brought to his task a vigorous, candid, and independent mind, enriched by the fruits of long and patient scholarship. His work is not merely a correction of King James's translation, but a new and distinct version. He disclaims the time-hallowed phraseology of the former, except where it best expresses the idea of the original. He says, that he has never retained it, because he found it there; and, if so, the frequency with which he has seen fit to retain it, bears the most flattering testimony to its general pertinency and beauty. Indeed, the warmest admirers of the present version may be half inclined to pardon Mr. Noyes for the hard things which he says of it in his Preface, on account of the following confession in its favor.

"Those portions of the common version, which remain unaltered in mine, have, in proportion to their difficulty, been the subject of as extensive and laborious investigation, as those which have been altered. This fact deserves the attention of those, who object to new translations. The increased confidence, which they may place in those parts of the common version, which pass through the furnace of modern investigation unchanged, should compensate them for any supposed evils connected with the alteration of other parts of it.”

In the volumes before us, the Prophets are arranged in chronological order. The distinction between poetry and prose is preserved throughout, the poetical portions being broken into verses corresponding to those in the original. Each book is divided into sections and paragraphs according to the sense, our arbitrary division of chapters and verses being denoted in the margin. Each section is headed by a brief and comprehensive program or argument. A few pages of notes are also appended to every volume. In these we have a short account of the author, date, design, and scope of each book, and an elucidation of the more doubtful and difficult passages. The style of the translation is throughout pure, chaste, majestic, and rhythmical. We detect no words or phrases of new or doubtful origin, none of those cockneyisms or of that affected quaintness, by which some, on this same career, have sought to supplant the "English undefiled" of King James's version. The dignity of prophecy and the harmony of poetry are everywhere sustained, while the distinctive peculiarities of the several writers are faithfully exhibited

Mr. Noyes has omitted all commentary of a doctrinal character. He labors to uphold no favorite theory of inspiration or of prophecy. He has dealt with the prophets, as he would have done with any other ancient authors. His only aim has been to introduce the prophets to his readers, and to leave them to speak for themselves on all points of controversy. We know of no reason, why his labors may not be equally welcome to the inquiring and truth-loving of all denominations. Indeed, he imparts to the sacred text a coherency and continuity of sense, the lack of which, in our common version, has stood sadly in the way of every class of religious theorists, while it has afforded ample ground for the gainsaying and cavilling of the skeptical. Whoever reveres the record of God's earlier revelations, whoever would see its pages no longer an open field for the blunders of ignorance, the baseless inferences of theological quackery, and the ridicule of the profane, must feel deeply indebted to him, who has so successfully disinterred the clements of a dead language, interpreted the monuments of long-past tribes and times, and made these writers hardly less intelligible than they were to their contemporaries.

The amount of critical labor bestowed on these very unostentatious volumes, those, to whom they will be of the most comfort and use, can hardly appreciate. The display of learning is carefully shunned; its front, bristling with unknown and tortuous characters, is sedulously concealed. The most ephemeral pamphlet could not have made its appearance in more modest

guise, or with less flourishing of trumpets. Yet we can assure our readers that such a work could not have been wrought for the cause of piety, without years of the most patient toil and abstruse research, without an intimate converse, not only with the Hebrew, but all its cognate dialects, a diligent study of Asiatic geography and archæology, the consultation of a vast range of authorities both ancient and modern, a close investigation of the genius and purpose of each of the several authors, and a careful comparison of text with text, and author with author, to clear up doubtful etymologies and constructions. Nor is this all.

These critical labors would have been clothed by a merely Oriental scholar in a crude, inelegant and unattractive form. In this case, however, the English style evinces singular purity, dignity, and beauty, and indicates the most careful elaboration, by a mind no less conversant with the treasures and capabilities of its native language, than familiar with the mysteries of ancient philology.

5.- Political Hermeneutics, or an Essay on Political Interpretation and Construction, and also on Precedents. By FRANCIS LIEBER, Professor of History in South Carolina College. Boston. Charles C. Little & James Brown. 1837. 8vo.

THIS little treatise, we understand, forms a portion of a forthcoming work by Dr. Lieber on Political Ethics. It was originally published in the pages of the "American Jurist," and has since made its appearance in the present shape. We salute it as the avant-courier of that important work to which Dr. Lieber has devoted so much time, and which, if we may rely upon the favorable report of those who have been permitted to peruse some of its pages, is calculated to reflect honor upon the country, and to advance greatly the science of politics. The editors of the "American Jurist," in the short preface with which they have introduced the Essay on Hermeneutics, take the opportunity of presenting a bird's-eye view of the large work, of which this forms a part. It appears that Political Ethics, in the view of the author, comprehends the subject of morality, and of the rights and duties of citizens, with regard to the various institutions, which enter into the great element, the State; in brief, it comprehends that vast body of political relations, which cannot be determined by strict law, and which have never before been classified and considered as a whole. Questions, like the following, are proposed and attempted to be determined; what is